First official look at The Hobbit!

June 23, 2011 - By Liam Goodwin

The Hobbit has been filming for three months now and Peter Jackson has been providing fans with video blogs and casting updates on Facebook. What we have been lacking though, is our first good look at the actors in costume, but all is well now as Entertainment Weekly got our first official look at Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins and Ian McKellen as Gandalf.

On Martin Freeman Jackson said:

”He fits the ears, and he’s got some very nice feet,” Jackson says of his Bilbo. ”I think he’s got the biggest hobbit feet we’ve had so far. They’re a little bit hard to walk in, but he’s managed to figure out the perfect hobbit gait.”

On Ian McKellen returning as Gandalf:

”He’s in fantastic form,” Peter Jackson says of McKellan. ”In a way, his role in The Hobbit has more technical difficulties than Lord of the Rings did, because he has scenes with 14 smaller characters — obviously the dwarves and the hobbit are shorter… I remember saying to him [laughs], ”Look, this isn’t Waiting for Godot or King Lear. This is The Hobbit. This is the real thing.”

You can see another image of Freeman and Jackson preparing for a scene here!

The first film, titled The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, will be released on December 14, 2012 and the second film, titled The Hobbit: There and Back Again, is slated for release the following year on December 13, 2013.

The Hobbit follows the journey of title character Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor, which was long ago conquered by the dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen), Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior, Thorin Oakensheild (Richard Armitage). Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Giant Spiders, Shapeshifters and Sorcerers.